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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Blessed Non-Assurance: The Truth About Atheism

"Science is nothing but perception." - Plato

I ran across this ad for the Atheist Campaign not too long ago. It intrigued me a bit, so I decided to click on the link to see what this was all about. As you would have guessed...it was about, well, nothing (get it - because they're atheists). These were the logos and buttons that could seen around the holidays in the UK and other places that have been designed to try to put the mind and soul at ease (as clearly seen by the slogan). Except for there is one small problem. We'll call it the "Problem of Probability".

How in the world could this set anyone's mind at ease?! If there IS no God, then there's no judgement, no wrath, and no accountability to him (Never mind the fact that the ramifications of such a proposal are horrendous, but we'll save that for another time). But they don't give a definitive answer; all they actually offer is a 'definite maybe'. You would have to be irrational to find comfort in something like that. Truth be told, what we have here is a tell-tale slogan. Most telling of all is the lack of surety, due to the fact that the statement isn't atheistic (no god); it is most certainly agnostic (no knowledge - or not sure of god). So, this leaves one to question:

Why so hesitant to pull the trigger?

Even with all of the popularity surrounding writers such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, no one seems to really be able to put a nail in God's coffin. Nietzsche tried. He failed. Even during the French Revolution, the leaders who abolished the religious structure because they believed in reason ended up making reason itself into a goddess because they realized that people needed something to worship. Why? Because it is intrinsic to human nature. Even when wrongly pursued, the fact still remains that we are inherently aware of the fact that something, someone greater than ourselves governs the order of things in the universe (Romans 1:18-25). This is why George Herbert is right when he says, "The devil divides the world between atheism and superstition".

So even though these New Atheists try to posture behind the guise of empirical scientific evidence and sound reasoning, the truth is that they are no closer to the truth than when they started. It's all word games, straw men, and ad hoc arguments...

Ben Stein Interview w/ Richard Dawkins

"Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it becomes an error of the understanding." - Plato